


The Fight - And Fate

by trailtothetruth



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22641142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trailtothetruth/pseuds/trailtothetruth
Summary: A Dragonborn from another timeline fights Miraak. A companion piece to Blue Star Break by aureliu_s.
Kudos: 6





	The Fight - And Fate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aureliu_s](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aureliu_s/gifts).



Veros steeled herself as the dragon she'd tamed spiralled towards the summit of Apocrypha. Where Miraak waited. Where he said he'd give her one last chance.

_ I can give you power, if that's what you indeed desire _ , he'd murmured silkily, gloved fingers skirting over her cheekbones.  _ Join me. You are already revered. Together, we could be divinity.  _

And now, the Psijic's request, a plea from a different world, a different Skyrim-

_ The stars are changing,  _ Miraak had said as he stole a dragon soul from her.  _ It will be a pair of dovahkiin alone who can fix it.  _

But he was a tyrant. A monster. Not unlike Ulfric had been. She'd put enough gods-damned effort into uniting Skyrim already. Making sure it was united against the Thalmor. She'd put Harkon down for the same reason she'd put Ulfric to his grave. Skyrim could not face another threat.

And so she would do the same to Miraak.

As she stepped off of the dragon, the First Dragonborn bowed to her.

"I see you have become the Konahrik." He tilted his head. "I tried to claim it too, long ago. They thought me too ambitious, too.. ruthless." She could  _ hear  _ him smiling. "A trait we both share."

She said nothing. How he loved to hear himself talk, thinking that he might somehow sway her. She had a spine of steel. She would not break. No man would ever control her again. 

Konahrik had been her last card to play. Moreso a myth than anything else she'd collected. But with it, she was at the height of her power.

And Veros would perform her duty to Skyrim, once again. Miraak would fade into a bedtime story told to kids to make them behave. He would haunt her dreams no longer.

"Come on." She said finally. "Let's finish this."

Miraak stared at her for one long second, before sighing. "I dreaded it would be this way."

Saying nothing, she brought her sword up to guard. 

"Please." His voice was low - desperate.

She almost lowered it. Almost. 

He stared at her for a long moment. Then, finally, Miraak squared his shoulders and shouted, summoning the dragon aspect. She echoed it.Then she moved, thrusting the sword towards him, whispering under her breath - " _ Yol. _ "

He blocked the sword, but not the fire, and he teleported away. Spinning, Veros swung her sword, connecting with his shoulder, and she heard a grunt of pain. Blood splattered her mask, and she drew her sword in again.

To ram it through Miraak's gut.

He choked, gagging on his own blood, before he faded into the oily ground, reappearing before one of his three dragons - the one that'd helped her. She sucked in a breath before he did a strange shout, and the dragon collapsed, letting its soul flow to him.

Miraak was no swordmaster. That was why he needed her. She saw it now.

"You've spent the past few thousand years poring over books, stuck in this hellhole," she breathed as she stood up. "You are no match to me. Stand down."

He raised his head, his mask shining eerily in the light, and Shouted. " _ FUS RO DAH _ !"

The strength of it bowled her over, and she went flying, tumbling to the edge of the area. Looking down, she saw only a flat, oily sea, far below her.

This would not be where she died.

As he walked up to her, chuckling a little under his breath, she held herself still, still, still, not letting him see the power she held in her throat and her veins, and the three words searing on her tongue.

As he knelt down to her level, grabbing her chin mockingly like he had so long ago, she breathed out, letting her favorite shout come with it.  _ "Yol Toor Shul _ ."

A wave of fire crested over him and he staggered back, leaving enough of an opening for Veros to stagger to her feet and swing her sword. It was sloppy, staggering, but it did the job, and he disappeared, leaving Veros a few vital seconds of time.

Running to the last dragon, the one that he wasn't currently absorbing, she whispered an apology and plunged her ebony blade through its eye. Gazing up at her, it looked almost.. sorrowful. As it died, she heard a roar from Miraak, and whirled around to face him.

He was furious, and another foreign shout sent a cyclone of whirling air at her that she barely dodged. As she did, an idea occurred to her, and trying to clear her aching, ruined throat, she prepared one final, powerful shout.

He stood looking at her, waiting for her to move. There were no second chances for either of them, and she was playing dirty this time.

" _ JOOR ZAH FRUL _ !" The shout hit him like a giant's club, and he staggered with a cry.

"What is this foul thu'um, dovahkiin," he groaned as she approached him, readying her blade for the killing blow.

She said nothing, only breathing in, out.

Then he screamed. An awful, beastly scream, and she flinched back as something awful began to happen. He was growing, expanding, a dragon beginning to form in his place. The mask clattered to the ground, allowing her to see a pair of bright green eyes before it was all swallowed up by scales.

With a roar and a snatch of his jaws, he tossed her blade aside. His scales were armored, like Alduin's. She had nothing left she could do. Her throat was ruined from shouting so much. She doubted she'd be able to get another word out for a day or so.

As she stood, gaping, he took to the skies, throwing her back with the great gusts of air from his wings. She hit the ground hard, and Veros was tired, so tired. Her whole body hurt.

Unsheathing the bow from her back, she notched an arrow with trembling fingers. She was so tired. So tired.

Watching the dragon Miraak soar around the arena, she pulled the bowstring tight. Breathed once, twice.

This was her duty.

Her arm trembled as she tracked the dragon. She had so little time.

She breathed in, out.

In, out.

Those green eyes turned to her.

In.

She let the arrow fly. Out.

It struck the dragon straight in the eye, piercing through to its brain, and it faltered midflight, screaming a terrible, awful, half-human scream, and then it plunged down, down, down, wings spasming, and Veros watched Miraak disappear into the dark sea with nary a splash.

She clutched the stone beneath her, breathing. In. Out.

"Very good," a voice crooned behind her, deep and rich and laden with the knowledge of an eternity.

She refused to acknowledge it, gathering her blade and the weapons Miraak had dropped, and letting the book push her back out, into the snow, into the cold, cold coast of Solstheim, where she'd knelt so long ago.

She'd wept when she killed Ulfric, but as she knelt in the snow, the cold biting through her robes, she felt nothing at all.

She was Veros, and this was her duty, nothing more.

As she glanced up to the darkening sky, she noticed he was right.

The stars were different.

  
  



End file.
